Cell Phone Survey

Have had verizon for 3 years now, I do a lot of traveling for hockey and when most of the guys with other services don't have service I still do. Never had a problem with Verizon...

I use Verizon. I get a big discount because my co. employs near 6000 cell phones nationwide. Still, Verizon seems to have the best coverage and using a small free app I am able to use the broadband service to tether to my laptop at no additional charge. I love my Droid Incredible. Thanks to Goggle and Verizon I no longer have to drag my laptop with me and I still can access ToledoTalk everywhere I go. Oh, one more thing, I have yet to experience a dropped call.

IMO, Verizon has the best coverage in the United States--and that's not just their marketing with "coverage maps".

Wife had an AT&T phone and went across the country (Seattle to Toledo) on a camping/adventure trip. AT&T Phone had no coverage in any of the places she was. Only coverage was in maybe a decent sized town or bigger, but not the campgrounds outside of those areas. She felt unsafe.

I added a line and overnighted a basic Verizon phone to her next campground. It worked everywhere she went the rest of the trip--and we're talking some pretty remote areas in Wyoming & South Dakota.

Needless to say, she dropped AT&T. Our plan for 2 lines/700 minutes a month runs around $70 per month. All Verizon-to-Verizon calls are free...and since we mostly talk to each other, 700 extra minutes for whatever else we need is a LOT of time. I don't think we ever crack 500+ minutes in a month.

I don't give a flying f**k about the IPhone. AT&T sucks and apparently, dropped calls are still a huge problem. Never had that with a Verizon phone--ever. If you're into those sorts of phones, apparently the Android (or "Droid") phones are getting pretty good.

I had AT&T for a not even a year. Not only did I have major issues with dropped calls (I couldn't use my cell phone anywhere inside my house reliably), but I found their customer service to be extremely rude and useless. I'm one of the people who coveted the iPhone, but refused to buy one because of the contract with AT&T.

I've been a Verizon customer for the past five or six years now and I see no reason to switch. While I can't say I've never had a dropped call, I can say it's been a rare occurrence. I have a Droid now and I love it.

I have had Verizon for more than 10 years. When I traveled to PR, my phone was the only one with service when my fellow companions and I found ourselves lost in the rainforest. I have service in the basement at my job and my house basement. The customer service has always been very helpful.

Verizon - you can get service even in the boonies, including mountains in TN and KY. As for the phone - Blackberry with unlimited plan - $$$$. It's nice but not really worth the money for a retired gal. It has been replaced once while under warranty. A nice feature is having all your stuff backed up on computer. I just downloaded all my contact info, calendar appointments etc into the new replacement phone. Sweet.

We have Sprint and have never had any problems with the service. No dropped calls, coverage everywhere we need it, etc.

I have a Blackberry with the unlimited data plan. (Actually, I'm using it to type this right now.)

I use Verizon and have no real complaints price or quality wise. Think I've had a call drop 2 maybe 3x in the last 5 years.

I also like their in network free calling no matter where the person is. I bumped my plan up a month or two ago and can have 5 numbers (out of network) I can call an unlimited amount of times and not take minutes which is nice since my mom isn't on Verizon, and work as well.

valbee: a guy I know is a big iPhone fan too but can't stand AT&T he's told me a horror story or two. Wish they would move it over to Verizon or another carrier. I like the iPhone to, but will like the Android based phones a lot more, now that they're out. Something nice about being able to write my own programs if I wish and put it on my phone :)

Sprint and like mom2, no problems. But, when I want to upgrade or have a broken phone (teenagers) I go to an authorized dealer rather than calling an 800 number.

As a side note...I am completely jealous of oldhometown's wife's trip!! :)

I dropped sprint shortly after they bought out Nextel. I was constantly losing service,and dropping calls. Now I am with the prepaid Virgin Mobile and could not be happier.

I have had coverage no matter where I am in Toledo, and even had service when I went to Indiana, and Michigan. In the 2 years I have used it I have had maybe a handful of dropped calls,

We've had TracFones for about 5 years and have had no problems and I pay less than all of you, maybe $10/month after the $30 cost of the fone. Of course, I probably use it less than all of you, lol. we have it mostly to talk to each other and it used to be for being contacted by the gkids for rides and such but all of our lives changed this year and we hardly use the phones any longer, maybe once a day. we're home more and still have our land line so people are starting to use that more. TracFone would NOT be a good land-line substitute.

lfrost - it seems strange that the Sprint service was giving you trouble but not Virgin mobile, since they both use the same network?

We're talking right when they bought out Nextel, so we're talking end of 2004 beginning of 2005. When I went in to complain they said it was probably due to switching over or something. I was with Nextel for over 7 years with very few problems, and the problems started when they switched. I didn't get with Virgin Mobile to maybe a year/year and a half ago.

I am not sure what is all involved when a cell company buys out a different provider, so I cannot say if it was them switching everything over or not. All I know is that I was having problems I did not have before when they made the switch.

Ah...gotcha. I was thinking you went directly from one to the other, in which case you probably would/should have had the same issues.

I've been on Sprint for 6 years with my wife, and have never had problems. I've heard Verizon has better signal, and I don't doubt it, but very rarely do we experience coverage issues.

Would you believe I never had a cell phone until about 3 years ago or so? And that was only because I needed one for my job. My then-boss put me on Sprint (paid for the account), and although I had a hard time getting a consistent signal in my then-basement apartment, I stayed with Sprint when I got my own account and I guess it's OK.

I've gotten service anywhere I've needed it, now that I live above ground! But there were some billing issues I had to contend with early on -- they were charging me for sending photos although I have free picture mail with my account. And I could do without the frequent customer service calls trying to upgrade my service. I pay about $55 a month for unlimited texts and unlimited and night and weekend calls, and I get 450 daytime minutes, which I never use up.

I have T-Mobile at $61.63 a month. I am considering switching to Verizon for about $90.00 a month with "free" Android. I was looking at one another friend has. Android comes with keypad. Internet service on the "fly" for $30.00 a month seems rather good. Plan I am interested in has 450 minutes a month. I have 1000 minutes a month with T-mobile and have never gone over 400.

Wirefly is the website offering this Android. I have had Alltel, ATT, and TMobile. TMobile drops a couple of calls every day.

This Android plan I find interesting.

I also have had Verizon for years. Don't think I've ever had a dropped call (i'm sure there was a couple i can't remember) and their customer service is great. I went over my minutes and data a couple of times over the years and the put me into a higher plan for that month and it shaved about $100 off my bill.

Sprint's customer service is horrible. I bought a new phone when I was up for renewal and the store clerk never put the insurance plan that I asked for. A couple of months later I dropped my phone in water and called to get it replaced and was told I can't get a new one because I didn't have insurance. Called customer service and told them and they said it was "he said she said situation" and there was nothing they could do.

Was phone-less for three weeks and during that time my phone somehow downloaded four games and went over on my minutes and texts. Sprint refused to refund my money even though I called weeks earlier and told them that my phone was not working. Paid the early termination fee and switched to Verizon.

I used to have Verizon. Now I have an iPhone on ATT.

I had more dropped calls and worse service with Verizon than I do with ATT. I've traveled across the country multiple times with both providers and they were pretty comparable to me.

I use net10, love it, not once have i had a dropped call. (I don't use it enough to justify a regular plan)

Last week, I bought a net10.

Verizon also. Been with them for 5 years and no problems.

However, note that if you are interested in "bundling" other service3s with your cell phone service, Verizon is getting out of the DSL and landline business in Toledo - that part of their business has been sold to Frontier.

I use Sprint which has better coverage in my area than the others.

The best experience I've ever had with a cell phone company was in Madison, WI. I used Einstein Wireless, which I gather is now AirFire. The people running the store hadn't read the book on customer service, and as a result they really were helpful and courteous. They helped me get my phone unlocked and made sure that service was working correctly for me.

One site that I found very helpful is Mobiledia which will show cell phone towers on a Google map.

I'm with nana in the barely-use-it category.

I have a $55 Virgin Mobile phone, which I top up (at about $90) once a year. That keeps my service for the year, and if I run out of time, I put on another $20 or so here and there. It comes to about $10-$15 a month, not counting what I paid for the phone.

Nice network, very few dropped calls, and I only pay for what I use. Sweeeet.

I've had a few carriers over the last eight years or so. (T-Moblie, Verizon, Alltel and even tried Revol for a hot minute.) My best experience has been with Verizon. T-Moblie's coverage was spotty, Alltel was decent and Revol was worse than my two year old niece's toy phone. Too bad Verizon doesn't have the iPhone, but the HTC Incredible looks good too.

Annie - You bring up a great point about the pre-paid phones. My question is how can some of these companies offer 40 dollars a month for phone, txt'ing, and data. I feel like a sucker paying what I do!

That being said and done, I have had Verizon for almost 10 years and I can say that I may have had less then 10 dropped calls since inception of the plan. I pay about 100 bucks a month as I travel all day long and need data access through out the day. Never an issue with dropped coverage.

The iPhone is the shiznit, you just can deny it. I have the basic HTC Droid now, but I will say I've been kicking around the idea of moving to Droid X. Anyone have one they can speak about?

Ive got Net10 also - no complaints about anything except I do find a dead area around detroit metro, which IS an issue at times...

Verizon. What sold me is the great coverage and the customer service reps have some intelligence. Not anything like my experiences with Sprint and Cingular (AT&T).

Verizon. I've seen no problems worth mentioning, but my needs are simple.

Had T-Mobile, and had terrible connection problems. Couldn't wait to get rid of it. Now I have Verizon, and always connect.

I have AT & T and am genrally satisfied. Coverage in certain downtown buildings not always strong. At Put In Bay over the weekend, I went from maximum strength to no signal to picking up a Canadian tower depending where I was standing.

@dbw8906 ...I compared the Moto Droid X to an HTC Incredible and went with the HTC. Although the X has a larger screen, the whole phone seemed to big to carry around. Seems I would be just shy of holding an iPad against my head to make phone calls. Also, the HTC seems to run faster and has a more sensative touch screen with better image quality.

FroYo (Android 2.2) will release for the HTC Inc. sometime this week bring the video capabilities up to 720p, WiFi access point and numerous other benficial addons.

For me Droid Incredible was the way to go. I think they may still be experiencing some Back Order issues but the wait was worth it.

But...that's just my opinon. To each their own.